


when we all fall asleep, we come to you

by troubadore



Series: geralt fluff week 2020 [6]
Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Creature Jaskier | Dandelion, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-07
Updated: 2020-08-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:01:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25759279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/troubadore/pseuds/troubadore
Summary: After another moment of them staring each other down, he indulges her. "What's the job?"Her eyes dart around, like she's looking for possible eavesdroppers before she goes on in an even lower voice. "There's a monster under the bed," she whispers, like she's sharing a secret.Geralt blinks—that's not what he was expecting at all. His brow furrows. "Under the inn bed?"She nods, eyes still wide. "He talks to me when I have nightmares. Says he eats them and then gives me good dreams. I don't remember my dreams, so I don't know if he's really telling the truth. His teeth are big. I think he just says he eats dreams because I catch him before he can eat me."orGeralt is hired to hunt the monster under his daughter's bed
Relationships: Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon & Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Series: geralt fluff week 2020 [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1860493
Comments: 57
Kudos: 898
Collections: Best Geralt, Geralt Fluff Week 2020





	when we all fall asleep, we come to you

**Author's Note:**

> this is probably my favorite of the fics i've done for [geralt fluff week](http://geraltfluffweek.tumblr.com) and i'm really proud of it （˶′◡‵˶）  
> prompt: fighting/contracts/monsters
> 
> i'm so SOFT for dadralt and baby ciri ok pls enjoy

Geralt feels eyes on him from across the table, and he looks up from his meagre breakfast to quirk an eyebrow at Ciri, who's watching him with wide green eyes. "What?" 

"I have a contract for you," she says, voice a mock-whisper. She's holding onto the edge of the table, almost not big enough to reach, her chin on her hands. 

The bustle of patrons around them is minimal at the early hour, the inn not quite awake yet. The innkeep wipes down the bar while the barmaid makes quick rounds to deliver bowls of bland oatmeal to the few people scattered around. 

"Eat your breakfast," he tells her, gesturing to her own plate of fruits. She makes a face but obediently picks up a piece and puts it in her mouth. "What's this about a contract?" 

She perks up, and he watches with no little amount of bemusement as she pulls the coin pouch he'd gifted her some years ago from her coat and puts it on the table between them. It makes an impressive thunk against the wood, and he's proud of how she's been saving her coin, like he'd taught her. 

"There's a monster you need to hunt," she tells him seriously. She nudges the pouch towards him. "Fifteen crowns for the job." 

He eyes her for a moment, her gaze steady and unblinking in return. Casually, he picks up the pouch, pretending to weigh it and think it over. They both know he's not going to actually take it from her, but she likes the pretense, likes pretending. 

After another moment of them staring each other down, he indulges her. "What's the job?" 

Her eyes dart around, like she's looking for possible eavesdroppers—smart girl, though unnecessary; he'd know if they had any unwanted listeners long before she would, and it's too early, besides—before she goes on in an even lower voice, though he has no trouble picking up her words. 

"There's a monster under the bed," she whispers, like she's sharing a secret. 

Geralt blinks—that's not what he was expecting at all. His brow furrows. "Under the inn bed?" 

She nods, eyes still wide. "He talks to me when I have nightmares. Says he eats them and then gives me good dreams."

Her nose scrunches and she reaches for another piece of fruit from the almost-forgotten plate in front of her. "I don't remember my dreams, so I don't know if he's really telling the truth. His teeth are big. I think he just says he eats dreams because I catch him before he can eat me." 

A breath escapes him, and Geralt finds himself shaking his head fondly.  _ A dream.  _ She's just having strange dreams. The worry that had started creeping into his chest dissipates as quick as it had come, and he relaxes. He's forgotten the wild imagination of childhood. 

He hums in consideration, though, still playing along, and then makes a show of tucking her coin pouch into his shirt, saying, "I guess I can take a look. Wouldn't want you to be eaten in your sleep." 

"That would suck," she agrees, bouncing in her seat. "You still haven't taught me to fight with a sword." 

"You're seven," he says, giving her a look. "You'll train with the sword when you're older." 

"How  _ much  _ older?" 

"Older," he repeats, and stifles a grin when she pouts at him. He throws her a bone, adding, "When your feet touch the ground while you sit instead of dangling in the air." 

She looks down at her feet, at the way her toes just barely brush against the floorboards—and that's when she points them and really reaches. She huffs but concedes. " _ Fine. _ " 

"Fine," he agrees, and returns to his bowl of bland oatmeal. "Now finish your fruit." 

When night falls, Geralt tucks Ciri into her bed in their shared room, a couple of candles the only light to chase away the shadows. A warm breeze carries in the scent of rain through the open window, and the quiet sounds of nightlife make for a decently soothing ambience. 

He gently brushes stray white-blonde curls from her face as he presses a kiss to her forehead. "Sleep well, pup," he murmurs against her warm skin. "I'll see you in the morning." 

"You'll chase away the monster under the bed?" she asks, one eye open to look at him. 

He offers her a reassuring smile. "Nothing will get you while I'm here. I promise." 

Satisfied, she closes her eye and tucks her face into her pillow, snuggling into it. He pulls her blanket up, making sure she's covered, listening as her breaths even out and deepen as sleep takes her quickly. The stress of being on the move, going town to town wherever contracts crop up, wears on her, he knows, even if she doesn't consciously acknowledge it. 

He runs a hand through her hair, as soothing as he can make it. His brave little pup. 

Eventually, he stands, readying himself for bed. He extinguishes the candles with a flick of his wrist, and the room is plunged into darkness. His eyes adjust quickly, helped by the light of the newly waning moon. His swords are under his bed, in easy reach. 

He sits at the edge of his bed, facing Ciri, and closes his eyes, letting himself slip into a light meditation, restful but alert, prepared to wait. 

He doesn't wait long. 

On the road, when they're too far between towns to find an inn and instead have to make camp, her nightmares are more frequent. Often, he wakes to the sound of her tossing and turning, faint whimpers escaping her that make his heart clench. He wishes he could chase them away, could fight them off with a burst of Aard or shield her from them with Quen. 

In towns, they happen less often, the comfort and safety of an enclosed room and a bed easing her mind, but they do still happen. In both cases, she'll startle awake and eventually climb into his bed or bedroll, and they subside after that. 

She hasn't had one recently, and he'd thought, perhaps, she feels safe enough here that her dreams are peaceful. 

Apparently not. He listens as she turns over, smells as the tangy scent of apprehension begins covering the gentle cherry blossom of her natural scent. An ache builds behind his ribs as she starts to whimper faintly, but he remains still. He's on a job now. 

He senses a presence enter the room, but not from the door or the window: more like it simply coalesces into being from nowhere. Or, more accurately, from beneath the bed. 

It hovers around her for a moment, and he strains his senses. It doesn't  _ feel  _ particularly malicious, and his medallion is silent and still. He doesn't let his expression change even though he wants to frown as thoughts race in his mind. 

A terribly gentle  _ Hush, sweet thing  _ makes him open his eyes, and Geralt takes in the shadowy figure sitting on the edge of her bed and leaned over her, an appendage—an arm—extended toward her head and brushing her sweat-matted curls from her face. 

He's humanoid, for the most part. He can make out a head and a torso, arms and legs. The moonlight doesn't quite reach him, but his eyesight is enhanced enough to catch the curl of dark hair around ears and the ivory shade of his skin. 

He blinks, and glowing blue eyes are looking back at him. 

"You should be asleep," he says softly, voice surprisingly warm, even with the sharp teeth he catches a flash of when he opens his mouth to speak. 

"I'm on the job," Geralt replies just as soft, unwilling to disturb his pup. His protective instinct rears its head as he watches the figure brush his fingers through her hair, a strange glow at his fingertips. "How'd you know I wasn't asleep?" 

"Besides the fact you're sitting up?" He grins at him, eyes bright and teasing him, and Geralt thinks, wildly, that this creature is terribly pretty. "I'm a dream eater. I sense dreams, taste them in the air. There weren't any coming from you tonight." 

A dream eater. It's been a long time since he's heard the term, way back in his early days at Kaer Morhen. He thinks he might have read a paragraph or two on them in some obscure textbook he stole from Vesemir. 

What little information there had been on dream eaters had said they supposedly "ate" bad dreams—nightmares, night terrors, and the like—and left only good dreams behind, feeding on the negative energy and replacing it with positive. Benevolent creatures, overall, though he faintly recalls a line about some dream eaters who feast on good dreams, leaving the nightmares instead. 

He watches as Ciri settles under that glowing touch, her whimpers ceasing and the apprehension fading away as a dark, viscous mass is drawn from her and then consumed by sharp teeth like sweetmeat, the tension in his own chest easing as her pain does, and he thinks this is probably one of the good ones. 

"Hm." 

He relaxes his shoulders with conscious effort and keeps eye contact with the dream eater. The blue of his gaze is bright in the darkness, two points of light against the black of the night. He finds himself mesmerized, unable to look away, drawn in by the tenderness he exudes. He speaks again, and Geralt's gaze is drawn to his mouth, watching the way his lips shape the words. 

The dream eater is  _ very  _ pretty. 

"What job are you on?" he asks, tone full of curiosity. He watches him back with the same intense gaze Geralt feels from himself. 

"Hunting you," he says, and the dream eater's eyebrows raise. "Ciri said you talk to her. Thought you were a monster under her bed planning to eat her." 

It sparks a breath of laughter from the dream eater. "Only her nightmares," he assures him. His expression sobers up slightly, brow creasing, a troubled downturn of lips. "They're...unusually vivid. And quite horrifying." 

Geralt had been there during the fall of Cintra, only a few years ago now. He'd come for Ciri, his Child Surprise—only four at the time—and had taken her away as soldiers of Nilfgaard poured into the city, ransacking and pillaging and burning. The memory of it is still carved into his own mind, haunting his own dreams, but he's had decades to learn how to not let it affect him. 

The dream eater looks at him, and Geralt thinks he's seeing those memories inside his soul, alongside every other nightmare he's ever had in his long, long life. Maybe he is—maybe he's seen Geralt's nightmares alongside Ciri's, and that's why these last few days have seen them get the most peaceful sleep they've had since Cintra burned. 

Something about that puts him off-balance, but warms him at his core: that this strange creature would care enough to want to soothe the sleep of two people, when one would be enough. 

"You both feed me very well," he says with a wry upturn of his lips, confirming Geralt's thoughts. "It'll almost be a shame when you move on." 

He doesn't know what makes him say it—the strange warmth in his chest, maybe, or the way he can't seem to look away from those blue eyes—but the words, "Come with us," make their way out nonetheless. 

Surprise flickers over the dream eater's face. "What?" 

"When we leave," he clarifies, "come with us. Ciri—" He clenches his fist, looking at his pup sleeping peacefully now that her nightmares have been taken away. "She deserves peaceful nights. Cintra— she shouldn't have to relive that in her dreams." 

The dream eater watches him for a long moment, head tilted, and then he grins, small and soft. "Alright," he agrees with a shrug. "Not like there's anything tying me to this particular town, really. And I haven't traveled in a while. Might be fun." 

They share several moments of peaceful, companionable silence, in which the dream eater begins to hum softly, something that sounds like a lullaby. 

"What's your name?" Geralt asks eventually, curious despite himself. 

The dream eater smiles again, bright and pleased. His hand continues caressing through Ciri's hair, gentle and tender like she's his own, and it settles the protective instinct in Geralt to know his pup is cared for. 

"Call me Jaskier." 

**Author's Note:**

> find me on [twitter](http://twitter.com/troubadorer) and [tumblr](http://geraltofriviasleftbuttcheek.tumblr.com) for more geraskier~!


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